


Cold Dish

by Maldoror_Chant



Category: One Piece
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Bleak, Divergent Timeline, Gen, Plot Twists, Pre-Timeskip, Revenge, Timeline after Water 7
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-22
Updated: 2017-10-22
Packaged: 2019-01-21 05:57:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 17,700
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12451038
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Maldoror_Chant/pseuds/Maldoror_Chant
Summary: Take one blood-soaked tragedyBaste in unfair odds and pepper with deceitBreak it apart and flambé the piecesPour into a crockpot and bring to a slow boilCrack two shipmates and add one at a timeBlend well and leave to stew for a yearMakes one portionServe cold





	1. Act of contrition

**Author's Note:**

> Timeline: A year after Water 7, but a divergent timeline from right after the Enies Lobby arc

"Only the very best chef could aspire to become Lord Stone's personal _cuisinier_. To be honest, I'm not sure a mere mess-cook could fill this position, mister..." The steward's eyes dropped to a piece of paper in front of him, then he gave Sanji a long-toothed smile. "Mister Prince. My, what an interesting name. Yes-yes."

Sanji smiled ingratiatingly instead of kicking the steward through the wall. "I do have references. I've been working in the main kitchens for the past five months now, serving all the captains and commanders. Captain Ebens swears by my cooking."

"Yes-yes." Those little bursts of 'yes-yes' were one of Steward Manning's many, many tics. "But you'll have to concede that Captain Ebens is a sailor and a one-time pirate. Neither categories are renown for their _goûts raffinés_ \- that's, refined tastes."

"No, sir, but your tastes are exquisite," said Sanji with a nod at the steward's silken waistcoat and elaborate wig. With this perfumed git, overdoing was nigh on impossible. "You've occasionally eaten at Captain Eben's table these past few months and you complimented the cooking each time. I was quite honored."

"Yes-yes." Steward Mannings joined his fingers together, solemn as a judge. "It was quite good compared to our usual fare, but, _mon bon ami_ \- my dear fellow - just because you can make an acceptable stir fry does not mean you are capable of cooking for the educated palate of Lord Stone."

"I can do that." Sanji's teeth were grating in his smile. "Before coming to Rock Haunt, I worked in the kitchens of a royal palace."

That's what Sanji should have said right from the start. Steward Mannings was suddenly his best friend.

"Oooh, that's very interesting. Isn't that interesting, Commander Masu? Yes-yes, very interesting. Do you know the Lady Kladadorna de Monjoie, Mr. Prince? I was in her service for five years. No? Yes-yes, before that I was stewarding for the Pratts, of the Oberstein-Pratt family, and then-"

The steward prattled on, completely oblivious to the scathing looks from the well-armed ruffians who'd come in with Commander Masu. 

Lord Stone, despite his adopted title, was a former pirate, and even as one of the Shichibukai he liked to surround himself with men of his ilk. Rock Haunt was filled with reformed pirates working for Stone, protecting the Grand Line citizens by attacking and pillaging their one-time brothers. Very rough around the edges. The steward was an anomaly in the fortress, a sign perhaps that Lord Stone was trying to become the Lord he'd arbitrarily dubbed himself. The steward was a sparkling cockatoo in a pit of vultures, universally mocked and reviled by Stone's cutthroats. It was a mystery why he stayed here; presumably Stone paid him ten times more than any impoverished nobleman could, and Mannings would never have the guts to hand Lord Stone his resignation anyway. He apparently survived the constant hostility and scorn by living in a world of delusions in which his respected opinion actually mattered in the running of Lord Stone's affairs. Unfortunately when it came to choosing Stone's personal cook, he really did matter, and that's why Sanji kept nodding and making vaguely impressed noises. 

His smile felt as fake as a bowl of wax fruit, but he had to keep it up. Not for the benefit of the steward, who was too busy detailing how well-connected he was, but for Commander Masu, the officer in charge of Lord Stone's guard, the man who could have Sanji drawn and quartered with just a flick of his finger. The commander had given Sanji one hard stare when they'd sat down, but was now reading through the contents of a folder. The only time he lifted his head was to give his surroundings a disgusted look. The interview was being held in Manning's quarters around a dainty mahogany table, in the midst of a room resembling the nest of a deranged magpie. Gilded clocks lined the mantel, gilded mirrors hung on the walls, gilded gewgaws covered every flat surface, and embroidered cushions and rugs touched it all off. In this glitter of fake gold, Masu's grey and black soldier's jerkin lent him the appearance of a battle crow, looking down the crooked beak of his nose at the folder's contents like it was a carcass he was about to peck at. 

"My information says you worked for three years in the royal palace of Alabasta," he said abruptly, interrupting the steward mid-boast.

"Yes sir." Those references were foolproof, and the main reason Sanji had gotten this far into Rock Haunt in the first place. An unusually sad and stern Vivi had made personally sure that any question about Mr. Prince's past would be adequately fielded.

"That sounds like a cushy job." There was a question in Masu's statement. 

"Too cushy," Sanji answered with a grim smile. "I didn't feel like working for twenty years to get no higher than sous-chef or head of pastries. I'd rather cook for a Shichibukai; a cut of plunder taken from pirates will get me more money than a salary. And since I think highly of myself, I aim to cook for the best. Plus, I had a fight with the bitch in charge of the kitchens back in Alabasta." Sanji's finer instincts recoiled at his own words, but he kept right on talking. "She didn't like my flirting with the scullery maids." 

"I see." Masu's eyes, which seemed to be perpetually narrowed in suspicion, dropped back to the folder. "You arrived last November with Captain Ebens' crew. You've been cooking for the officer's mess for the past six months."

"That's right. I made that beef and beer torte for Captain Eben's birthday. You personally came into the kitchen to mention it, Commander, if you remember."

No warmth touched Masu's expression which said, yes, I do remember, I never forget a face. "Captain Ebens recommends you for this post."

"Oh, that's good to know, sir. Captain Ebens and I get along well. We have similar tastes; fine food, fine wine, fine women..." Captain Ebens used to sail with Shanks in their youth and owed the latter his life, though nobody in Rock Haunt knew about that and Ebens was anxious to keep it that way now that the debt was discharged. That was all for the best. What Masu didn't know, wouldn't hurt Sanji.

"Lord Stone is choosy about his immediate entourage," said Masu, after a long scrutiny.

Sanji interpreted 'choosy' as meaning 'Lord Stone is a paranoid bastard who thinks everyone is out to get him, and he's not far wrong at that'. Unfortunately, Lord Stone was a clever paranoid bastard with some formidable defenses; he had Commander Masu, he had a massive fleet and an impenetrable fortress full of vicious ex-pirates, he had The Brothers. And if all that failed, he still had his devil fruit powers, the bugger.

"You realize you'll be eating a portion of anything you set before Lord Stone, and nothing else?"

"Oh good, I like my cooking." Sanji had already scouted out Stone's security arrangements beforehand, he wasn't surprised.

"You do know what happened to Lord Stone's previous cook, right?"

"It'd have been hard to miss," Sanji said dryly. "I was in the dining hall and had to duck as he hurtled over my head."

As far as Sanji could tell, Masu had yet to blink even once. Creepy bastard. All of Stone's immediate associates were freaks. "And that doesn't concern you, Prince?"

"I'll be sure Lord Stone has no reproach to make about my cooking."

Masu never smiled, but his voice was a well-oiled smirk. "You'll be very sure. When Lord Stone has a reproach, someone gets hurt. The Brothers aren't known for pulling punches." 

"I'm aware of his bodyguards' commendable attachment to our employer. Don't worry, unlike Lord Stone's previous chef, I don't drink while I cook - a foul habit if there ever was one - and I know how to choose my ingredients, so I shouldn't end up in traction like Head Chef Hamato."

"You're ambitious," Masu said slowly. 

Sanji smiled. "Oh yes."

The commander closed the folder. "Good. I didn't want the hassle of recruiting someone from the outside with all the extra background checks that'd imply. Try to stay intact, Prince. Mannings, unless you've any objections..." Masu stood up without even glancing at the steward.

"Yes-yes, Mr. Prince will do fine. Now, Mr. Prince, you understand that all your menus must be run by me personally. Lord Stone has an educated palate, and is aiming to maintain _une bonne table_ \- a distinguished table. I expect a high level of quality from someone who has cooked for - yes-yes - for the Nefertari royal family, no less. A good presentation is _de rigueur_ \- is a must, as is proper manners, oh yes-yes, manners, I will expect highly of your manners, there are so many _malapris_ \- rude fellows I mean - in this fortress."

Sanji nodded and promised himself that the next time the steward condescendingly translated a word for him, Sanji would show him a bit of _collier_ kick and _mouton_ mallet. 

It was an empty promise, a promise broken before it was even made. He had a greater promise to keep, and only a month to keep it in. 

He'd cut it close, but now he was in. Which left him with one single concern. Where the hell was the idiot swordsman...? 

 


	2. Self-flagellation

If Sanji had to choose a dinner companion for a tête-à-tête supper every night over a period of weeks, he'd have picked any number of beautiful women. Commander Masu would not have figured anywhere on the list. Though it wasn't quite as excruciating as Sanji had feared. Masu wasn't a conversationalist, which was good; Sanji didn't particularly want to talk to him. And when the silence became too oppressive, Sanji could always tell himself he was lucky that Stone's food-taster was the dour Masu rather than, say, Steward Mannings. 

Masu put down his fork and wiped his mouth on the back of his sleeve. He also used to be a pirate, Lord Stone's first mate when the latter still sailed the Grand Line as Captain Stone. It showed. 

"Not bad, Prince."

"Thanks," Sanji murmured a mite sardonically. Another good thing about Masu was that he didn't require Sanji to put on airs or pretend to be his buddy. Sailing with Ebens, back when Sanji was establishing his credentials, he'd witnessed one of Masu's battles against pirates. The man was tough, and fought with dispassionate brutality and efficiency that matched the bounty on his head before the government's whitewash job. But at least he wasn't a sycophant or a hypocrite. It was pretty much his only charm. 

Masu clicked his fingers and one of The Brothers stepped forward to pick up the covered dishes the two men had sampled at random. Sanji dutifully followed the four courses trundled out on their trolley. When they reached the great hall, Masu went to sit with his men while Sanji navigated around the banquet tables and surveyed the hundreds of feasting former pirates, looking for anybody who might have some complaints about the food. 

Stone's men were giving the word 'carousing' a good workout. A bunch of low-brow, aggressive, none-too-clean bastards who thought this stream of food and grog was paradise, the extent of their microscopic imagination. It aggravated Sanji to be feeding these soused swine, but he'd learned to put up with so much this past year that his soul had callused, leaving everything beneath it numb. 

"Oh, Mr. Prince? Yoo-hooo."

There was only one person in this fortress or indeed within a hundred nautical miles who would say Yoo-hooo, and the fact he'd say it in this hall packed full of bravos only one step removed from piracy was a testament to the solidity of the man's delusions. Fortunately for him, the steward's daft head was sacrosanct as long as he had Lord Stone's protection, so nothing worse than sneers were thrown his way. 

"Yes, Steward Mannings, what can I do for you?" Sanji asked, fishing out his packet of cigarettes. The air in the great hall was thick enough to cut up and boil down for broth, a bit of smoke would make no difference. "Any problems with tonight's menu?"

"No-no, _au contraire_ \- on the contrary. Lord Stone asked me to summon you." Sanji's thumb missed the lighter's trigger in a moment of tension he quickly caught and strangled, not that Manning, fluttering and twitching, would have noticed. "He would like to compliment you on tonight's repast."

"That's certainly kind of him," Sanji murmured, flicking the lighter shut and lodging the cigarette in the band of his chef's hat. He told himself this was a good occasion to get a close look at Stone's security arrangements, just to avoid any surprises tomorrow. Twenty-four more hours. He could put up with the man's presence that long. He had a promise to keep.

The great hall rang to its high rafters with the tightly packed throng, but the far end was in splendid isolation, a dais surrounded by an empty space of twenty feet which nobody crossed without permission. It hosted a long table where Stone dined alone, unless he invited Masu or a particularly favored captain to join him. The Brothers had already gotten up from the table and stood at the four corners of the podium like spectacularly ugly Corinthian columns; they ate in succession and quickly, like lions horking down a meal, leaving the bits they didn't like for Sanji to clean up later and he couldn't even say or do anything about it. The fact that they did eat there, at the same table and from the same dishes as Stone, was a subtle message to the other diners. Stone was saying these weren't just his bodyguards, they were a part of him, his fists, he trusted them more than any of the curs here and they would crush any designated target and then go back to their supper without losing a beat. 

Sanji felt curious gazes on him as he crossed the no-man's-land - curious and malicious, they all remembered Head Chef Hamato's flying feat across the great hall. All eyes were on him except Stone's. The lord of the domain was sitting back in his chair, examining the wine the color of heart's blood in his crystal glass. The chair was typical of Stone, Sanji found himself thinking; big and ornate enough to be distinctive, but not so obviously a throne that it would tip over into the realm of overt arrogance and ridicule. Stone had a fine eye for symbols, and for power and presence. His whole demeanor said that this chair was the Boss's chair. It didn't need to look like a throne, but it was one when he sat in it.

"So, you're the chef who's been cooking for me these past few weeks. That was a good dinner, Prince. Exquisite choice of wine, too." Stone didn't sound complimentary, but that was his usual manner. He never shouted, he never laughed, he never joked with commander Masu, his friend of twenty years. His voice was always as even as the horizon around a barren lump of rock in the middle of a hungry ocean. Sanji let the feelings evoked get lost in the numbness inside. 

He met his employer's eyes long enough to avoid giving signs of avoidance and then he bowed. "Thank you, Lord Stone, it gladdens a chef's heart to see his cooking appreciated. I'm thankful for the opportunity to put my food on this table, sir." And that at least was the cold-blooded truth, though not for reasons Stone would know about.

"Come up here, Prince. Stick around." Stone made a beckoning gesture. Physically he looked a little like a previous 'lord' that Sanji had crossed: he had Lord Crocodile's big, solid frame, strong features, rich dress, outwardly courteous manner. But Stone moved and spoke in a pared-down way which suggested that when push came to shove, he would not waste his time gloating or posing. Stone would not leave his enemies to die by inches in a room slowly filling with water while he walked away. No, Stone might leave his enemies in a room slowly filling with water, but he would make damn sure he'd put a bullet in their head first. The water would just be icing on the cake. 

His invitation could not be avoided, should not be shunned. Sanji climbed the three steps to the dais, and the nearest Brother stepped back to make way. The four large bodyguards were never far from their master. Nobody - apart from Masu, presumably - knew the history behind that arrangement. Sanji didn't particularly care. Rumor in Rock Haunt had it that the four siblings had voluntarily cut out their own tongues to show their loyalty to their master and demonstrate that they would never betray his secrets. Sanji didn't care about that either. 

"So, Prince." Stone was contemplating his wine again. "I heard you took over as quartermaster for our food supply, as well as cook for me."

Sanji slipped his hands beneath the belt of his chef's tunic. "Yes, I did. I can't cook if I don't have the right ingredients, and with all due respect to our previous quartermaster-"

"Don't bother with respect. It's hard to provision this place, and this past couple of weeks the food and wine have improved fourfold. You get the job done. I don't care how you obtained it."

That came with a flicker of a look darted at Sanji's face. It might only mean that Stone knew he'd bullied the former quartermaster out...or it could mean Stone had guessed that the former Head Chef Hamato's drinking problem and poor choice of ingredients might not have been entirely the poor guy's fault. Sanji didn't see how Stone could have guessed the latter, but he wouldn't put much past the bastard. Either way, it appeared that sticking a knife in someone's back was an acceptable path to promotion in Stone's world. No wonder there was this tension hovering like a miasma over Rock Haunt's denizens, and the boss himself was paranoid.

Stone opened his mouth to add something when he was interrupted by Masu hurrying over to the central table. The commander came up to the boss's chair and whispered a few words into his employer's ear, words that made Stone scowl, not a facial expression Sanji was used to seeing on the cold bastard.

"Let them come in," said Stone after a moment's thought. At his gesture, the Brothers stepped closer to him, one of them elbowing Sanji out of the way and nearly into the fireplace at the back of the dais. Sanji patted off his tunic and glared at the large back and shaven head in front of him. He wasn't even sure which one had shoved him and it hardly mattered anyway. The four of them were interchangeable, virtually indistinguishable, and if they had individual names, only Stone knew them. None of the Brothers noticed the glare from the nonentity behind them, their concentration on the large doors facing the dais across the length of the great hall.

"Men, we have guests," Stone said, raising his voice and stilling the room around him by stages. 

Guests? Sanji moved a little to the left so he could prop himself up against the chimney's lintel and finally light his cigarette. More ex-pirates? Another Shichibukai? Probably not the Marines, they tended to avoid Rock Haunt. Which was a good thing, a few of them might recognize Sanji.

The far door opened, and Sanji's thoughts crumpled to a standstill. 

A metallic rustle replaced the great hall's usual auditory fug of laughter, belches and swearing; it was the sound of two hundred men dropping their hands to their cutlasses. And then the silence spread like a riptide, rushing through the room and drowning all other noises. 

The new arrivals moved forward in that silence, that fear. They owned it. Dracule Mihawk, the greatest swordsman in the world, and right behind him walked Roronoa Zoro.

In the sudden hush, Sanji could only hear his wobbly heartbeat thumping numbly in his ears, and the memory of the conversation six months ago...

_"My references and my cooking skills are my ticket into Rock Haunt. Who'll suspect a chef, right? How about you, Zoro? How are you going to sneak in?"_

_"I'll be there."_

_"Yeah, but how? It's gotta be subtle, he mustn't figure out what we're up to. If you want my advice-"_

_"I'll be there. On the day."_

In what far-flung reaches of the sea did that blades-for-brain think this entrance qualified as 'subtle'?! The inside of his head must have gone the same moldy-green color as the outside, Sanji internally ranted, staring at an empty spot on the flagstone floor because he shouldn't look, shouldn't be seen to recognize- no, wait a sec, that was stupid. Everybody else was staring, he'd look more at odds if he didn't. So he lifted his head and, while the whole great hall stared uneasily at the lethal picture, Sanji drank it in. He hadn't seen Zoro in well over half a year. It should be illegal to miss someone that dumb so very, very much. 

He looked fit. As fit as could be expected in the circumstances. The grim expression was pretty much what Sanji expected. Zoro hadn't changed much in the intervening months, though he had swapped his usual clothes for some dark material that managed to look both sober and expensive. And he was clean. That was certainly a change. Sanji had gotten used to seeing his nakama with washed-out bloodstains on his white shirt, holes in his ratty haramaki and haloes beneath his armpits from training like a maniac. This cleaned-up, shaved and neatly dressed Zoro was faintly disturbing. Sanji let his eyes rest with fleeting relief on the haramaki, a reassuring constant, before glancing at the bandana hiding most of the grass on top of that boneheaded dome. That didn't surprise Sanji in the least. Zoro was in hostile territory. But nattily dressed. It occurred to Sanji that this would be Mihawk's influence, and that idea might just be one of the most bizarre he'd ever had.

Sanji glanced down at his plain, inconspicuous kitchen smock, the kind of clothes Zeff had fought like a lion to get Sanji to wear back on the Baratie, in vain. They were stained here and there with splashes which Sanji didn't have the time or the care to wash out...Talk about a switch. Just when had the world turned upside down? 

And then he remembered. It had been the day that had brought them here, one year ago tomorrow.

"Welcome to my domain, Mihawk. Interesting choice of guests," said Stone as his fellow Shichibukai stopped before the dais. Mihawk was dressed in red and black paisley with a long dark cape, much as Sanji remembered him from the Baratie so long ago. The set face and predator eyes hadn't changed either. 

"He's not my guest," said Mihawk, without returning the greeting.

The Brothers tightened their formation around Stone.

"He's my armsman." 

"I'd heard a rumor you two were traveling together, but I hadn't put any credence in it. How did that happen?" Stone asked slowly, which was what Sanji wanted to know too.

Mihawk shrugged, a dismissive gesture. "I defeated him. Twice. He's done the honorable thing and chosen to serve me."

Sanji felt as if he'd been kicked in the stomach. Fuck. Fuck that stupid, self-destructive cabbage-head...He wondered how Zoro had persuaded Mihawk to go along with this, and even lie for his sake. Because Mihawk was lying. He had to be. If that rematch had taken place, one or both of these men would not be standing here.

But nobody else knew Zoro that well. Stone's soldiers were starting to relax. Murmurs hissed from every corner of the hall. People stared openly, some in amazement, others with scorn. There were even a few leers from those who'd need a dictionary to figure out what 'armsman' meant, and wouldn't be interested in reading one because it didn't have any dirty pictures.

Sanji found that he'd ground through the filter of his cigarette with his teeth. He spat it out into the fire and glared at Zoro from behind the shield of his forelock. Stupid shithead. Sanji could have come up with three or four different ways of getting Zoro into the fortress without this- this _farce_. Okay, the fact that the piece of seaweed had 120 million berry in bounty on his stupid head and his face on posters over half the Grand Line would have made it a challenge, but-

But when had Zoro ever done anything other than go his own damn way? In his personal philosophy, the easy path was for wimps.

Zoro didn't acknowledge the stares, didn't twitch at the whispers, didn't move. His eyes were steel rivets fastened on Stone. The Brothers hadn't budged either, and they had their massive paws on their weapons. 

Mihawk looked back at Zoro as if a thought had just crossed his mind. "Does he make you uncomfortable, Stone? I can leave him outside." He could have been talking about his horse. 

Sanji didn't have to look at Stone to know the latter hesitated for a heartbeat. That was the problem with Stone, compared to other enemies the Straw Hats had defeated. He was neither stupid nor overconfident. Zoro had gotten past two of Rock Haunt's defenses - the barren, heavily-guarded mountains and coast, and the fortress itself - by simply strolling in; that left only Stone's picked men in this hall, the Brothers and his own powers to defend him. More importantly, he had no idea what game Mihawk was playing, and when the greatest swordsman in the world showed up unexpectedly with an enemy in tow, it begged certain questions. In his peripheral vision, Sanji could see Stone's hands tighten on his chair's armrests and turn to stone like the marble hands of unfeeling statues. Rumor had it that Stone's chest, throat and back were always made of rock, however tiring that would be for a Logia user to keep up. Stone wasn't stupid, and he wasn't careless, either. 

But then again, saying 'yeah, he scares me by looking at me funny, please make him go away' would sound beyond weak in the middle of his own stronghold. Lord Stone had ambitions beyond Shichibukai, anybody who worked for him could tell, and he wouldn't get anywhere if he got a reputation as a scaredy-cat. 

"Will he do anything stupid if he stays, Mihawk? I wouldn't want you embarrassed during your unexpected visit to my home."

"He won't do anything I disapprove of. What's left of his honor is at stake. As for my visit, you sent me an invitation."

"Yes. It had RSVP on it, if I remember right." 

"I was busy."

The two Shichibukai stared at each other, a short visual fencing match, and then Stone said in a voice as amiable as dusty ruins, "I'm sorry, my manners are shocking. Please, Mihawk, have a seat. As you can see, we were having dinner. Would you care to join us? Prince, set an extra plate."

Sanji forced himself to move as if the only thing on his mind was the quantity of leftovers in the tureens and the supply of pepper. 

"Just wine," said Mihawk, climbing the steps and making his way to the chair Stone had indicated. Everybody stiffened as he put his hand to his great black sword, but he only detached the scabbard from its halter and propped it against the table like a dining companion. Zoro took up a spot behind him, arms crossed, eyes front, ignoring everyone. 

"Suit yourself," said Stone. "I do hope you'll join me for tomorrow's celebratory dinner, though. My chef is going to outdo himself."

"I wouldn't miss it."

"You won't regret it. Prince, pour the man some wine."

"Yes, Lord Stone," said Sanji. Hands that seemed to belong to somebody else picked up the bottle of Mariejoie vintage and a glass from the trolley. He did not look at Zoro as he put the glass in front of Mihawk. The latter's eyes passed over Sanji without betraying a flicker of recognition. Either Zoro had forewarned the Shichibukai of Sanji's presence, or Mihawk didn't remember him from the Baratie. 

Mihawk glanced away from the bottle Sanji was showing him and looked around the room. "I didn't see many of your men on my way through the mountains. Are they all here, getting drunk?"

"These are only my picked forces. My troops and my armada are off hounding the pirates and chasing them back to their side of the Red Line. They keep making forays."

"Aren't you afraid they might send a strike force here?" 

"I'd like to see them try. Nobody can attack me here." If Stone had ever mastered the art of emoting, that would certainly have come with a gloat. "The seas around my island are treacherous to those who do not have local fishmen on their side as I do, and Rock Haunt itself is impenetrable. Let them break their strength against it. It will make them easier to pick off. So far, even that idiotic whelp Fire Fist hasn't been dumb enough to try to attack me here." 

Sanji's hands stayed steady as he poured Mihawk some wine.

"I heard that little bastard has sworn to put my head on a pike. Very 'old world' of him. Whitebeard's lot are antiquated. All pirates are." Stone's eyes flicked to Zoro, who could have been meditating on a mountaintop for all the attention he seemed to pay to Stone's words.

Mihawk reached for the glass. "Yes, they do have these old-fashion attachments to such things as family. And revenge."

"You sound like you approve of those pirates. Or do you disapprove of a Shichibukai doing his job?" 

"I do neither. Your affairs are none of my concern."

"They might become so." Stone fingered his chin, calculating eyes on his guest. "You're a Shichibukai as well, and if you stay for the celebrations tomorrow, Fire Fist might take that personally and decide he wants your head on the pike next to mine."

Mihawk took a single sip of the blood red wine. "I doubt it. Ace Fire Fist is a very focused young man, and I am not the one who killed his brother."

"That's right, you're not," said Stone with a rare smirk.

And two silent wills echoed that sentiment. Yeah, it was you, Stone. It was you.


	3. Two Sinners Meet on the Road to Golgotha

The kitchen staff disliked their new head chef. They wouldn't have liked the head chef whoever it was, since the kind of people Lord Stone attracted to his service automatically despised authority and would disobey it unless it came down on them hard. But Prince was a right bastard even by those standards, unfriendly as all hell; he'd kick a guy's ass as soon as look at him. And a demanding prick to boot, always insisting they wash their hands before they touch the food. He never chatted with the under-cooks, he never got drunk with the scullions, never shared his smokes with the quartermaster or played poker with the guards...There was only one living thing he seemed to care about in the entirety of Rock Haunt, and that was that bloody tangerine tree he tended every evening like it was his only child or something.

It was tempting to shove that bloody bush off its balcony, yet none of the kitchen apprentices or sauce makers or butcher's lads or busboys dared go through with it, even when they bore fresh prints of Prince's shoe on their backside. Prince gave them hell if they spilled stuff, broke dishes or overcooked the meat, but they all obscurely felt that if that bush was damaged, retribution would be sheer murder.

In that regard, they were right.

Sanji moved his cigarette from one corner to his mouth to the other with a roll of his tongue, and sprayed the leaf with a fine mist from the bottle before carefully wiping it off. The night was as black as an iron cauldron, the negligible light from the onion skin moon absorbed by the brooding black stones of Rock Haunt rising around him. The fortress was designed in three concentric pentagons of solid walls, each a barrier surrounding the main tower where Stone resided; ringed by mountains, the place was gloomy as all hell even under a blazing sun. Sanji's room was in the servant's quarters within the second set of walls. It was a low-ceilinged space beneath the eaves, with only one window and a thinly railed balcony jutting out of the roof's tiles to look at no better scenery than the nearby wall where it joined onto the building, forming a gloomy corner. These were in fact cushy quarters by the standard of Stone's staff; Sanji had only gotten them due to his position as chef and friend of Captain Ebens. 

Sanji didn't need a candle, despite the nearby wall compounding the darkness at one in the morning; he knew the position and shape of every branch. He checked the bottom of the leaf for aphids with his fingers before moving on to the next one, the inspection punctuated by a puff of his cigarette. He'd performed this little ritual every night for the past five months. He'd sit like this for an hour after the kitchen fires were banked and the meats for next day set to marinate. The patrols on the walls were so used to seeing him on his balcony they would probably sound the alarm if he was missing. Tonight as every other night they would glance at the small speck of red light that was the head chef's cigarette and walk on, not noticing that a patch of darkness between the crenelation of the wall near 'Prince's' room was a little more substantial than usual.

"Are you hungry?" Sanji asked without looking up.

From the small silence that preceded a non-committal grunt, that wasn't the first question the shadow in the shadows had expected.

"No insult to your food intended," Zoro finally said, "but I won't eat at that man's table."

Sanji glanced around carefully. Zoro, with his usual approach to discretion, had spoken in his regular growl of a baritone. It sounded loud in the night, but there was no-one around, and from a distance the sound of voices would be less suspicious than conspiratorial whispers.

"I didn't see Stone offering you anything anyway," Sanji finally pointed out, "aside from baited insults."

"That's fine. I can swallow those for now." 

"Here. This will be more palatable." Sanji reached into the tree and plucked one of the tangerines he knew was ripe. He tossed it at the lump he could make out in the sliver of moonlight. A hand reached out of the shadows to catch it. Zoro held the fruit cupped in his large palm for a few reverent seconds, then he nodded his thanks and peeled it carefully. 

"So, how'd you get Mihawk on board?" Sanji asked, playing it flip but inwardly dying of curiosity.

"I asked."

Sanji gave the swordsman a drilling look that easily pierced the darkness and could pound its way through rock too. Zoro shrugged it off as he quartered the tangerine. "There's a price for his cooperation. It's nothing I can't pay."

"What do you mean?"

"It's between the two of us." That pronouncement sounded as final as the stubborn ox could make it, and Sanji knew he'd never get to the bottom of it. 

"Did I mention you're an idiot?"

"Not for the past six months, no."

"I knew it was a bad idea to leave you to your own devices, shit-for-brains."

Zoro ate the tangerine without bothering to comment on that.

Sanji finished his cigarette and flicked the dying red speck over the rail of the balcony. "Have you heard from the others?" 

"Yeah, a letter from Chopper reached me three months ago. Nami's doing better."

Sanji carefully wiped a leaf. "Better? What does 'better' mean?"

"I don't know, he didn't say. No news from Robin..."

"Usopp?" 

In the near-darkness, Zoro tilted his chin in the direction of Rock Haunt's fortifications. "As planned. We both got your message."

"How's he holding up?"

"He'll be fine on the day."

"He better be, the day is tomorrow."

Zoro got up without a word and stepped down from the wall. 

"Hey, marimo-" Sanji stumbled over the familiar pet insult, a remnant of better days. 

Zoro stilled without turning around.

"Steer clear of the soup," was all Sanji said in the end. 

"Roger."


	4. Retribution

"They use hit and run tactics. My armada can't seem to corner any of those rats." Stone cut his meat like he was dissecting it. "Doesn't that sound oddly organized to you, for a bunch of pirates?"

Mihawk shrugged. He'd barely touched his celebratory lunch, but was on his third glass of wine. "Whitebeard does have a strong hand over them, as does Shanks." 

"Yes, but the pirate emperors normally spend more time on their internal squabbles than bother any of us, and they're not known for their ability to cooperate. It's as if they're gunning for me specifically."

"I can't imagine why," said Mihawk.

Stone smirked, a coldly calculated expression. "Let them. They'll be that much easier to dispose of. We have the might of the World Government at our fingertips. They're willing to put a lot of power in our hands to get rid of the pirates. And if a new King is crowned and crosses the Red Line, they'll be all the more desperate. The world is changing, Mihawk. It's shifting in my favor. I'm glad you decided to come today," Stone added, with an encompassing glance at the victory banners and burning torches decorating the great hall, and the feast his men were loudly enjoying. Pride of place was left to Stone's old Jolly Roger, the only flag nailed into the walls of Rock Haunt that wasn't shot full of holes or half burned. "None of the other Shichibukai seemed to want to celebrate my first year in their ranks, or the defeat of that Straw Hat scum."

That had been said with yet another cutting glance Zoro's way. Stone could have been chirping like a bird for all Zoro paid him any heed. He was sitting down this time; Stone had generously offered him a seat at his table next to Mihawk for the occasion. Zoro hadn't eaten anything. Sanji, hovering near the center table like a good head chef should on such an occasion, knew not to take it personally or feel too bad about all the food that was going to go to waste this afternoon. Sure, it nagged at him like well-remembered hunger pangs, but it was for a good cause.

The first course was finished, many more were to follow. The festivities of food and revel were planned to last until evening where they would be drowned out by drinking and carousing. Stone's table had been served with a delicate consommé fit for a king, its heat kept in by a golden crust over each individual dish, this crust decorated with latticework shaped like a crown with small candied seeds in lieu of jewels. A masterpiece, if Sanji did say so himself. The lower tables had been served a clear mushroom soup with a touch of cognac, the subtlety of which was entirely lost in the flow of beer and rum all the ex-pirates were swilling. The second course of marinated mutton and beef had been served and most of it would go down the hatch before show-time. Only a few minutes away, at that. Sanji glanced around, noted how the celebrating soldiers were falling silent one table at a time, looking queasy. He wandered over to one of the large fireplaces that punctuated the great hall and pretended to warm his hands. The small packet fell from his sleeve when he brushed his fingers together. In a minute, high above them all, the smoke from the stack would take on an oddly pearlescent-blue glow, visible from beyond the walls. 

A minute after that, give or take the time for Usopp to get into position, and all hell was going to break loose. Sanji headed back to the main table. 

"Prince!"

Sanji turned to face the man striding towards him. Masu. It figured. 

"I've just had one of my sergeants report that three of his men are ill." Masu looked suspicious, but then again, he always looked suspicious. "They started throwing up and shivering right after they ate the soup."

"Really?" Sanji scratched the back of his head. "That's not much of a compliment to my cooking, is it." 

"Act smart and I'll have you flogged all the way across this hall," Masu snapped in the manner of one who is used to handing out and acting on such threats daily. "Was there anything wrong with that dish? Didn't you taste it?"

"Hell no."

A rare expression of surprise crossed Masu's features. "You didn't? But you always taste everything," he said. Amazing, maybe he'd actually begun to trust Sanji...

"So kind of you to notice my dedication to my job." Sanji fished around his pocket for his pack of smokes. "I'm just as surprised as you are that those guys got sick. That wasn't supposed to happen."

A splitting scream ripped through the air, cutting off Masu's next words, and Sanji lifted a finger. " _That's_ what was supposed to happen." 

Masu spun around. One of his men, a tall bastard with one eye and only half his teeth, had jumped up from his seat and was batting at his chest and arms. Despite every appearance of a tough and vicious fighter, he was screaming about spiders as shrilly as a convent-raised schoolgirl. Instead of telling him there wasn't a single arachnid on him, his neighbor had fallen off his bench and was crawling away, eyes wide with terror. Then from the other side of the hall, someone else screamed. Masu opened his mouth - and right on cue, one of the high windows around the great hall shattered. Then another, then a third in such rapid succession that it looked simultaneous. 

It rained glass and it rained fire. Green flames spattered the tables and the - regrettably now spoiled - food. Usopp and his little chemistry set had outdone themselves; the fire seemed alive, it splashed and ran like water down the gutters in the stone floors, it crawled up the wall and chewed on the tapestries and captured pirate flags, it danced and clawed at the panicking throngs. 

And now everybody was screaming. 

Masu spun back towards Sanji. "What did you do?" he asked, sword already in hand and pointing at the cook. "I know you did something. What?"

"I'm afraid I mixed a couple of mushrooms that really shouldn't be mixed," said Sanji as he lit his cigarette. "I might have also added some spices and a few fish bits to the soup that amplify the effect. The amount of alcohol those sods are drinking didn't help either. I know you keep a paranoid eye out for poisons in every provision shipped into Rock Haunt, Masu, but you'd be amazed at how many foods are toxic when you don't prepare them right."

"What-"

"Don't worry, nobody should die. Well, not from the food itself. They might kill each other under the effects of the hallucinations, but I think they'll be too scared to use all those sharp, pointy things they like to carry around. And at least they'll be out of the way, so I won't have to kill them. These losers would make pitiful appetizers, and I don't want to spoil my appetite for the main course." 

He wasn't even sure Masu heard him over the uproar. The green fire was crackling around the room, turning it into a scene from hell even without the benefit of some very dubious fungi, and most of the pirates who weren't screaming in hysterical panic were busy getting the hell out of there. Nobody noticed that the phosphorescent fire wasn't actually burning anything, but in the stampede, such fine details were bound to be overlooked. 

"You know, Masu, I don't like you much..." Sanji puffed out a trickle of smoke; it curled around the point of Masu's sword which was hovering an inch from his throat. "But in the months I've been here, I've gotten to know you. You're a dedicated guy, honest in your way, and you appreciate good food. What I'm trying to say is, if you choose to run now, I won't stop you. I don't have anything against you, and I don't necessarily want to hurt you."

"I'm going to-"

Sanji ducked the sharp metal, letting it whistle past his neck, fell backwards, spun and _kicked_.

"I don't necessarily want to hurt you," he said, taking the cigarette out of his mouth as he landed back on his feet, "but I had the feeling you wouldn't leave me the option. Stay down, will you?" 

Masu didn't answer beyond a 'thud' as he slid down the far wall and hit the floor.

The great hall cleared itself remarkably fast. From the sounds of it, those who hadn't eaten the soup - the kitchen staff, the busboys, a few guards, the cleaning personnel - were all evacuating under the effect of panic and the cries of 'fire!'. Sanji nodded to himself without feeling any actual satisfaction as he picked his way past spilled soup and broken tableware to where Stone was standing near the dais. 

The lord of Rock Haunt had stopped his useless attempts to stem the exiting tide of his panicked men. "What in the depths of hell is going on here?!" he barked.

The question echoed in the now empty hall. It was answered by the scrape of a chair being pushed back.

"Interesting party, Stone." Mihawk settled the large sword over his shoulder and pushed back his cape. "I'll be taking my leave now."

Stone gave him a basilisk glare. "What is this...?"

"As I said yesterday: none of my concern. I have my own affairs to attend to."

Stone stared at Mihawk's retreating back and then at Zoro, who'd moved to stand next to Sanji, and it was obvious the Shichibukai had put two and two together. "You'll pay for this, Hawk Eyes."

Mihawk didn't even deign to respond as he strode out of the hall, scaring a few stragglers on the way out the door. 

That left only Sanji, Zoro, Lord Stone and the Brothers. The time, it seemed, was Now. Sanji's eyes flitted towards the ornate grandfather clock that Steward Mannings - who'd hopefully run for his life by now - had installed on the dais. It'd been a year...

...A year and three hours exactly since that day when Sanji and Zoro had beaten the unworthy opponents they'd been tricked into pursuing through the streets of Water 7, and returned to find the brand new Thousand Sunny aflame in the harbor, fires of hell burning like those in the great hall in the present. Fortunately Adam wood was tough. Robin had already doused much of the blaze with the help of buckets and a multitude of hands, but there was only darkness in her eyes when she turned towards them. Sanji had been distracted by the sight of Chopper working frantically on a gravely injured Nami, but Zoro had taken a headcount the moment he'd stepped aboard and he'd asked the question which had brought them here today. 

_Robin, where's Luffy?_

"Prince." Stone spat the word out. "Are you one of Straw Hat's crew as well?" 

A flicked cigarette stub was his only answer, but the question had been pretty much rhetorical anyway. 

"What did you do to my men, Prince?"

"Doesn't matter." Sanji shrugged, eyeing the animal he'd been forced to feed these past few weeks. "You should worry about what I did to you."

"I feel fine," said the creature, but there was a catch of doubt in his voice.

"That won't last. I poisoned you too, Stone. It wasn't easy, but I worked on it. A pet project, if you will. The art of poisoning and the art of cooking aren't all that different in the end." This blasphemy didn't bother him anymore. When all their dreams had shattered, he'd found something useful in the shards, something to cut with.

"The crust covering the stew, the little jeweled bits that made up the crown. Cardamom. And tangerine seeds, provided by a friend. She wanted you to have them specially. I filled them with seastone powder. A very pure form of it. It can only be found in one place, high up in the sky on an island in the clouds. A pirate crew of our acquaintance had an interesting trip getting there, but they were kind enough to bring me back a good amount." He'd kept it in the tangerine pot, as a plain old layer of soil. Even Masu's paranoid poking around would never have found it. "Only small quantities are enough to affect a devil fruit user, yet hidden in the seeds, you didn't notice it going down. But you are now, aren't you...now that they've hit your stomach and started releasing their little payloads right into your bloodstream. You know, I bet that hurts."

In the thick silence that followed, Sanji could follow Stone's thoughts as if they were crawling across his forehead like little maggots. The grey eyes turned inwards, widened. He'd probably tried to use his powers and failed, as well as felt a pinch, a tremble, a clench in his gut as the waves of poisonous weakness washed him. But then the eyes flickered towards his four towering bodyguards. The Brothers had each eaten a Zoan devil fruit; bull, ocelot, caribou and something that Sanji had never been able to figure out, but might be a panda. They fought with four massive harpoons as weapons, and they were powerful even without a Logia backing them up. Stone's eyes rested on them as they each morphed into their semi-animal forms, huge weapons at the ready.

"Pity, Mr. Prince. It seems you've failed. You may have incapacitated me temporarily, but the Brothers are unaffected." 

Sanji rolled his eyes. "You still don't get it. Why do you think I said it was hard to poison you, Stone, when Masu and I can eat seastone by the bucketful and show no ill effects? No, the hard part was poisoning you and _not_ poisoning those gits. Hell, the only reason I dosed you with seastone in the first place was so you couldn't slither through the rocks of Rock Haunt and run away like the cautious coward Zoro and I know you to be, deep down. But I made sure that I baked the seastone in the crust. I've been cooking for you for weeks now, and observing you and the Brothers for months. Your silent buddies don't eat hard pastry; they've always left them on the plate. Lack of tongue makes it hard to cope with, I guess. You don't know what you're missing, fellas, my butter-glazed torte is a dream." Sanji shook his head as he fished out his lighter. "We didn't want to poison your bodyguards. Zoro and I, we're not your kind, Stone, so we wanted to give you what Luffy did not have. A fair fight."

"You forgot the other reason, cook," said Zoro, speaking for the first time. His eyes hadn't left the Brothers, particularly the big bastard with bull horns. "The other reason Sanji didn't disable you guys is because we want to kill you four very badly, and we want to do it up close and personal."

"Yeah, that too." Sanji lit a new cigarette. "Gentlemen? Shall we?"

The Brothers loomed over them, huge weapons ready to strike. They outnumbered their attackers two to one. But maths didn't count when facing men who had nothing to lose. They couldn't have taken Sanji and Zoro down on a good day anyway, which was why Stone, who failed to be as dumb as some of the Straw Hats' previous enemies, had carefully distracted the two second-best fighters from Luffy's crew last year, and Franky and Robin as well for good measure. False information had sent the four of them chasing after some putative super-strong enemies who they'd been told were going to blow up Galley-La's newly rebuilt headquarters as retaliation for building the Thousand Sunny. Those same rumors said the strongest of the bunch would attack the ship directly, so Luffy had stayed right where he was with an expectant grin on his face. 

Since Sanji had been running through the streets of Water 7, cursing a blue streak and wishing his opponent would stay still long enough for Sanji to kick him across the island, he'd not seen Luffy and Stone's confrontation on the docks. He'd imagined it a thousand times, though. Luffy, moving forward and smacking one fist into his palm, all gung-ho...and Stone evading him with his powers, slipping through the stones of the pier and leaving the Brothers to fight Luffy while he ordered his men to attack the Sunny. If he'd hoped Luffy would be distracted by his concern for his crew, then he might have miscalculated: Luffy trusted his nakama to fend for themselves while he fought to the best of his ability. But when the Sunny was firebombed...Sanji hadn't been there, so he didn't know why Luffy had fallen that time, when he'd just survived Enies Lobby and all their other trials. Maybe his injuries from fighting Rob Lucci were still too great. Or maybe the sight of their new ship going up in flames like the Merry had made Monkey D Luffy hesitate for the first time in his life...Well, no matter. It'd soon be over.

Weapons darted forward in Rock Haunt's great hall. Sanji leaned aside, not bothering to dodge more than the half-inch necessary, cutting it close but who cared about minor injuries now? His counterstrike broke an arm. A good beginning. Too bad he'd not been around to do this a year ago, when Luffy faced a Logia user _and_ four large well-armed Zoans by himself with his ship on fire and his friends injured at his back...

Luffy had fought like he usually did, like nobody would believe that goofy rubber kid in a straw hat ever could. But one blow had gotten through. One. And Zoro hadn't been there to watch Luffy's back and parry it. 

Having picked up worse injuries in his life, Luffy would have survived getting speared by a harpoon - though Usopp, grim and pale as he recounted the fight, had admitted there'd been 'a lot of blood'. But then Stone had punched Luffy and sent him falling from Water 7's high sea-walls and into the ocean. And Sanji hadn't been there to fish him out. 

Sanji didn't hold back the blow that sent one of the Brothers crashing through the great hall's stone and out into the courtyard beyond. Sanji didn't kill people ordinarily, but today he was willing to make an exception. From the corner of his eye he saw a spray of blood like a crimson curtain falling over the final act. He didn't even consider that it might be Zoro's blood. Neither of them were allowed to die yet. Not until they finished this.

Sanji kicked and sent the heavy harpoon aimed at his chest sailing all the way up until it embedded into the ceiling. His downward swing caught his attacker in the head and sent the large man crunching through the floor's stone paving until he was half buried. It brought Sanji no pleasure, and that pissed him off a bit. A year planning this: sneaking into Rock Haunt, getting rid of potential distractions, and making sure Stone couldn't run. Sanji had never expected to enjoy it, but he'd hoped to garner a grim satisfaction out of it. No matter, he wasn't really doing this for his own sake. He was fighting for the others; for Nami, Chopper, Usopp, even Franky whom they'd not gotten to know too well and who'd ended up sailing his scorched Thousand Sunny back to the Blues like a funeral barge rather than off to the New World. Franky, a certain bounce now absent from his step, had gone back to Water 7 in a passenger ship once the crew - minus Robin - were safe. Robin...She'd vanished long before they'd left Water 7, the very night Luffy had fallen, she'd disappeared while her nakama were frantically caring for their injured. And the Marines who might have been tempted to arrest the surviving Straw Hats had all run after her. The Straw Hats hadn't seen her since, she'd melted back into the world of darkness and shadow she'd once inhabited, and that had left Sanji with such a bitter taste that today's victory felt like ashes in his mouth. Enies Lobby had been for nothing...Sure, Robin had left with a promise- that is, she'd left Nami with a promise, which Nami had told them about once she'd come to. But after a year- no, Robin would not keep that promise, that dream. All the dreams were broken.

And now was the time for payback. 

Rock Haunt was still ringing with retribution. Blood pooled, running into remaining puddles of phosphorescent fire. The great hall looked like a disaster area, the banners fallen, the furniture destroyed, defeated pirate flags spattered with blood.

Stone had tried to run away a couple of times during the battle, but Zoro and Sanji had always managed to intercept him in the midst of their individual fights. Now he was at bay near the fireplace, holding a sword he was obviously not used to wielding, features pale and stretched. That might have been the sea stone, or it might have been fear. His glittering eyes went from Sanji to Zoro, and at least he wasn't dumb enough to try to bribe or threaten them off. 

"So you're just going to kill me? While I'm helpless?" he sneered instead. He was also too smart to mention the word 'honor', but it was definitely there in the subtext. 

A bad taste pervaded Sanji's mouth, and he spat out the half-smoked cigarette which had lasted longer than the Brothers. He wanted this bit to be over with already. He wanted to get the hell out of this place. "No. We're not going to kill you. We're not your type of insect, as you've guessed."

"We'd have gladly taken you down in a fair fight, like we did your buddies," Zoro said, jerking his thumb at one of the Brothers, pounded into a wall with blood pouring to the floor like a brilliant red tapestry. "But you'd never have stood your ground. Even if we'd somehow managed to corner you, beating up a Logia is next to useless. Your type get over within minutes anything we can dish out."

"But the seastone will take a couple of months to clear your system, according to a doctor acquaintance of ours," said Sanji. "You'll get over it eventually and use your powers to reconstitute yourself, but we'll see how you like spending that amount of time in a wheelchair, eating through a straw."

"With the thought that we might change our minds at any point during that time, and come back to finish what we started. A coward dies a thousand deaths," Zoro concluded, passing Kitetsu from his left hand to his right. 

At that point Stone tried to run, which wasn't much of a surprise. 

Zoro beat him to the side door. Stone threw up his hands and shouted- Kitetsu's hilt slammed into his face. He stumbled back, jaw smashed, and Sanji's vicious kick took him in the lower back, spilling him to the flagstones in a crunch of bones and torn ligaments.

"It's okay, I got this bit," Sanji muttered. Pulping even this miserable specimen while it was helpless would hurt Zoro in what little he had left, while Sanji had a vision of Nami as he'd seen her last in his head, ten long months ago, and felt absolutely nothing.

Stone hollered and gibbered through the swelling spreading up his lower face, trying to crawl away despite the pain nailing him to the ground. Sanji put his foot on the man's shoulder, to stop him from squirming away and prolonging this. This was meant to be over quickly. The two avengers didn't want to draw it out, they weren't particularly after pain and torture here; just revenge. 

Stone was trying to say something. Sanji's weight shifted for a spin kick when the wet, muffled words caught his attention. He grabbed Stone by the collar, despite his long-held intention to never touch the slime with his hands, and hissed: "What?!"

The ragged, broken words were a bare whisper, but they changed everything.


	5. Restitution

Zoro darted around the corner leading to Stone's private quarters, swords ready, eyes deadly, and arguing every inch of the way. "Answer me, crap-cook! Where are we going? This wasn't part of the plan."

Sanji didn't answer as he dragged Stone by the collar of his fancy shirt through the hallway, ignoring the muffled sounds of pain from his captive.

"Why are we doing this?" Behind the truculence, Sanji detected a note of concern. He should answer Zoro, or at the very least reassure his teammate that he hadn't gone barking mad. But Sanji couldn't speak. A part of him that had been frozen solid for too long had just been dumped into boiling water. He wouldn't wish this burning, agonizing frenzy of self-destructive hope on his worse enemy, much less a friend.

Stone's suite had always been heavily guarded, since the only time a Logia feared assassination was in his sleep. Like most of the inhabitants of Rock Haunt, Sanji had never been near the place, and as 'Prince' he'd had no reason to. They passed the large dorm with four massive bunk beds where the Brothers formerly slept to reach Stone's door, heavy marble reinforced with steel bars in a decorative style that still managed to look forbidding. Sanji pulverized it with one kick and thrust Stone through, keeping a tight hand on the back of the bastard's neck. 

"Where?" he ground out.

Stone was silent until Sanji shook him like a rat.

"...Oi. Sanji." Zoro's voice was deathly quiet. 

Sanji still didn't say anything. Stone had pointed to a bare stretch of wall between a library shelf and an ornate and entirely fictional coat of arms. Sanji threw the lord of these premises against the bed and went up to wall, tapped it with a foot. It sounded pretty solid, but it could be a hidden door controlled by some mechanism. A careful search would reveal a way of opening it. 

Sanji, who didn't have the mental reserves for a careful search, smashed the wall with two savage kicks, and from the dark space beyond came a drowsy, "Hey! I was sleeping here."

Sanji leaned over and braced his hands against his thighs, head down, suddenly too chicken to look until Zoro put a hand like a steel grip on his shoulder and they both moved forward. 

It had probably been a treasure room at some point, a place where some rich bastard could hide his coin and count it in the dead of night. Thick stone walls measured out a space eight feet by six, with a straw pallet for a bed, a bucket and a chain anchored to the wall and hooked into the seastone collar around Luffy's neck.

Luffy's hair had grown almost to his shoulders, and with a streak of dirt across his nose and no straw hat on his head, he looked absurdly younger than his eighteen years. He was filthy, thinner than ever, and the wobble when he swung his head up to blink at them spoke of weakness. But the grin when he recognized them was indomitable. Zoro and Sanji stood there like a couple of posts, struck dumb by that blinding smile. 

"Zoro! Sanji! I should have known it was you guys. You made a lot of noise."

There were no windows to the small room, the only door lead out to Stone's quarters. There was absolutely nothing in the small prison except for Luffy, his bed, his chain and a large metal bowl which looked like it had vegetable soup in it. Sanji stared at the container and realized he'd been asked to prepare that a few times; he'd assumed it was for someone in the dungeon, or possibly Stone's pet if he had any. The thought made him sick. 

"I'm sorry." He couldn't feel his lips move when he spoke. His whole face seemed anesthetized. "If I'd known it was for you, I'd have put some meat in it."

"Meat?" Luffy stared at him full of hope. 

Sanji numbly patted his pockets as if he was likely to find a few pork joints there. He felt shattered.

Zoro, who hadn't moved until now, turned abruptly on his heels and walked out, boots crunching through the rubble until he stopped in the next room. Sanji heard a single quiet word. "Key." The threat level of several large armies could have fitted into that request.

There was a rustle of a pocket being searched and then Zoro returned, disappointingly having obtained the key without removing any of Stone's body parts. 

"Oh man! I feel better already!" Luffy said, as the collar dropped from his throat. He grinned at Zoro as if his rescuers were only a few hours overdue and the iron had barely started to chafe yet. 

"We...we thought you were dead. We..." Sanji knew that in a few hours he would be beyond remorseful, all the way to self-flagellating over their assumption that a viscous snake like Stone could truly kill their captain, Straw Hat Luffy. Right now, though, Sanji's tone was as apologetic as roadkill and just about as lively. Shock, he thought vaguely, I'm in shock. Wow, I hope this wears off soon, because our mission of revenge just got promoted to rescue attempt.

"Can you walk, Luffy?" Zoro asked, ever practical and no more prone to shock than a hunk of moss-covered rock. Sanji found it in himself to be briefly irritated.

Luffy snickered as if that was the stupidest question he'd ever heard, leapt to his feet and promptly collapsed in a rubbery heap. "No," he said in the tones of one coming to the end of a well-thought-out deduction.

Zoro hoisted one arm over his shoulder and Sanji mentally kicked his rear in gear and grabbed the other. They helped him over the rubble, Sanji kicking away the vegetable soup bowl in passing. Luffy's bare feet flapped against the ground as he gamely tried to walk, not a complete dead weight but it was obvious he'd been in that little space for far too long to start bouncing around with his usual enthusiasm. Sanji's mind started functioning again as he cast it over the various stages they had to go through. Getting out of the castle should be easy, since Sanji had taken such great pains to empty it, but beyond that, the pirates who hadn't had much soup or possessed a tougher metabolism would be recovering. More problematic would be the guards who'd been posted in the heights around Rock Haunt. They normally kept an eye outward, ready to fill full of ballista bolts any invading forces, but unless they were deaf and blind and dead drunk as well, they had to have realized something mighty odd had happened to the castle they were supposedly defending. They'd be coming to investigate, and some of them were very strong. Usopp would hold them off, sniping at them from the highest pass and covering his nakama's retreat, but he'd be up against a small battalion if Sanji and Zoro lingered. And then they would be facing the sea full of fishmen and Navy ships. Sanji hadn't thought too hard about a means of extracting themselves from Stone's domain previously, but with a weakened Luffy in tow-

"Huh?" Sanji felt Luffy's head twist around abruptly. His captain had spotted Stone, who'd tried to crawl away while his captors had been busy, not getting far with a broken hip and other sundry injuries.

Zoro and Sanji halted and turned so that Luffy faced the man who'd kept him prisoner for a year.

"Wow, did you guys beat him up like that?"

"Yes."

Stone edged back, broken jaw making crunching noises as he tried to speak, words choked into a sound of pain. 

"Luffy, do you want me to-..." Zoro broke off and looked at Sanji over Luffy's head. "Go ahead, you two. I'll join you in a minute."

"But..." Sanji had no more taste for cold-blooded murder than he had for letting the snake live after seeing the chain and the bowl, but-...well, just 'but'. He didn't know what else to say.

Luffy stared at Stone and then, amazingly, he grinned, the sharp, clear-eyed grin his enemies got to see, usually only once.

"Hey, you. My nakama came and got me after all. See?" His arms tightened around Sanji and Zoro's shoulders.

Stone stared at him.

"You kept me from them for a long time. You hurt some of them. And because of you, I lost my hat." Luffy nodded once. And then, with deliberation: "I'll be seeing you again. And next time I do, I'm sending you flying."

There was a moment of silence, broken only by Stone's rasps. Then, with a small click, Zoro slid the revealed inch of Sandai Kitetsu back into its sheath.

"Can we go see the others now?" Luffy asked brightly, glancing at his first mate. 

"Sure." Zoro put his hand back on Luffy's arm around his shoulder and another one around his Captain's waist and nodded at Sanji. They moved towards the door without a backward glance.


	6. Confession

"The harpoon had a rope attached to it. That's what Stone told me; I don't remember it. Just something hurting and then a really big splash. I think I died a bit, but some of his men dragged me out where nobody could spot them and brought me back. I was sick for awhile. Stone said he wasn't sure I'd live, but he wasn't losing much either way. I slept for two whole weeks and when I woke up they didn't feed me enough, and then Stone locked me up. It was really boring."

"Did he hurt you?" Sanji asked. It wasn't too late to go back and crucify the snake.

"No, not really. He hit me over the head a few times. He loses his temper a lot."

Sanji had been working for Stone for months and had never heard the man so much as raise his voice until today, but Luffy could get under anybody's skin, especially a coldly calculating prick like Stone.

"But he said he didn't want to hurt me. He said he wanted me to see him as a friend. Like that would happen! But he said that after a year or two in there, I'd change my tune." The arms tightened around Sanji and Zoro's shoulders. "I'm really glad to see you guys."

Bastard. Intelligent, cold-blooded bastard. Luffy could absorb punches with a shrug, even factoring in the seastone. But keeping him caged far from the sea, cut off from his friends...it was like stealing Luffy's oxygen. Of course Stone was an idiot, Luffy would never join a dick like that, but after a couple of years of that treatment, Sanji and Zoro would have found nothing left to save. The thought made Sanji want to destroy something, kick it until it cried and crunched and bled.

"He kept saying that we should be allies because we both hate the government. I don't get that, why would I hate the government? It never hurt me. Well, except on Enies Lobby when they took Robin, but we won that fight, so fair's fair, right? But he wanted me to help him overthrow it. I'd rally the pirates and follow him. He had plans. He kept trying to tell me what they were, but they didn't sound very interesting, and I just wanted to get out, find you guys and go after the One Piece again."

Zoro and Sanji navigated around a broken pillar, heading towards the sweeping central staircase. They were walking like they were carrying something fragile of great value that had fallen once and almost broken, so they were taking twice as much care with it now. Which was stupid; with the seastone off, they could hurl Luffy down the stairwell and he'd bounce. Sanji nonetheless made sure his grip on Luffy was both secure yet not too tight. We're behaving like a couple of old biddies, he told himself, and couldn't even get up a good internal scoff.

"It was soooooo boring! Stone would let me out, but all he wanted to do was talk about the government and play chess. Chess is dumb, I can never remember how the horse moves."

Zoro made a 'give me a sec' gesture, released Luffy's arm and went to check the entrance to look for any of Stone's men who might be regrouping inside the inner defenses. Sanji kept Luffy upright and agreed that yes, horses moved in straight line, so chess pieces shaped like horses should do the same and Stone was obviously an idiot. Luffy grinned like hope coming back into the world and nodded.

"Then he stopped playing chess with me. He got stroppy when I picked my nose with one of the pawns. So, where are the others?" Luffy asked brightly, as Zoro returned and reached for his arm again.

Sanji had seen Zoro face death dozens of times, that maniac, but he'd never seen the man flinch like that before. Then again, what was the poor marimo going to say? He'd rather swallow his two remaining swords than look into those big eyes and tell his friend, his captain, his nakama, "Nami's been paralyzed from the waist down by cannon shrapnel. Chopper tried to help but some things just can't be fixed, and what with having to remove Ussop's left arm at the elbow after that burning spar pinned him, well, the lil' fuzzy guy just ain't the same anymore. As for Robin, we haven't seen her since that night, she left us behind and ran again so that the Marines and our enemies would chase her rather than us. But hey, me and Sanji are just fine, since we weren't even there to help our nakama when they were cut down. We haven't laughed or cried or dreamed or done anything but dedicate our lives to revenge this past year, but physically we're just dandy."

"Zoro? Where are the others?" Luffy seemed to think his very first crewmate and friend hadn't heard the question properly. "Are they in the castle?"

"They're not here, Luffy." Holy shit, thought Sanji, that just came out of _my_ mouth. Shut up! But it was too late, those trusting, friendly eyes were resting on him now (and so were Zoro's, blazing with fury and horror, and his knuckles going all white on Wadou's hilt). "Our Nami-swan made enough money, pinching all those pennies and grabbing loot when she could, that she's been able to retire back to Coco village at her sister's to work on her map from our ship's log. Robin-chan's still looking for the Lost History, but she made us a promise, well, to Nami-san really, that she'd come back and tell her about it when she finds it. As for Chopper, he's with Nami, probably getting fat and lazy, and improving his skills as a doctor. Usopp's here, though. We'll be seeing him real soon. And the idiot marimo and I are fine. We've found our captain again. We're all good."

"Cool!" 

Zoro's hand dropped from his sword hilt. He looked tired, as if some powerful spring had finally given out. 'Thanks' he mouthed over Luffy's head. Sanji shrugged. Anytime.

They made it out of the castle without seeing another living soul. Sanji knew this was the easy part, but it was still a relief.

"I'm glad to see the last of this place-" he started to say, when he was interrupted by a single long ululation, a drawn-out Yaaaaaaaa!! in A minor. The three men stared up the steep path from which the cry had resounded. A figure was hurtling down it at a speed that was likely to see him plastered to the valley floor if he wasn't careful. 

"I knew it!" screamed Usopp, staggering and nearly rolling down the last few feet towards them. "I knew it! I knew he was alive! I could feel it! Didn't I tell you he was alive?!"

"Liar," said Sanji and Zoro in unison.

"Hey, Usopp, you've changed!" Luffy said, studying their nakama with wide eyes. 

Sanji, Zoro and Usopp all dropped their gazes to the place where Usopp's left forearm had once been, replaced with a steel prong that could be fitted with three different weapons in one twist and a click of metal. 

"You've gotten taller! You're as tall as Sanji now!"

In the stunned silence, Usopp eventually mumbled: "It's the boots I'm wearing, they're inbuilt with these special springs so that I can follow these two guys when they leap up buildings-" He shook his head, sending his curly hair flying beneath the bandana. "Never mind that! Luffy, are you okay?! We thought- you- did that bastard _hurt_ you?!"

"I lost my hat," Luffy said darkly. 

Another pause, in which Sanji and Zoro remembered a detail they'd forgotten earlier in the waves of shock. Oh well, it had been Usopp who'd jumped into the sea despite his severe injuries a year ago, so it was his right to say it.

"Your hat?! You've been- been gone for a year- we thought you were _dead_ -...you...you...Don't worry, Luffy. I have your hat, it's at Nami's. I fished it out of the water for you."

Luffy stared at him, and then Sanji and Zoro lost their hold on rubbery arms as they twanged like elastic, shook loose and ploughed Usopp into a hug.

Usopp hugged right back. Sanji, hands finally free, got himself a smoke, because that was what a man did in these circumstances.

"I hate to break this up," he eventually said, after clearing his throat (just a bit of smoker's cough, nothing more). "But someone's gonna have to be the voice of reason and remind you all we're in hostile territory. Right?" He turned towards Zoro for some support, to find the swordsman looking back towards the castle. 

"Oi, pea-brain."

"Hm?" Zoro glanced at him, then at Usopp and Luffy, who hadn't moved. "Yeah, you need to go. Usopp, can you carry Luffy? Sanji and I will cover your back."

"No problem," Usopp said in a suspiciously hoarse voice, trying to wipe his face and nose without being obvious about it. "I can carry him." He looped his right arm around Luffy's waist and shouldered the latter's arm.

"I'll help-" Sanji started to say, thinking Usopp's one-armed hold wasn't going to be too good, but Zoro cut him off.

"No, let Usopp do it. We'll run interference with any of the outer garrisons."

Sanji shrugged an agreement. Side by side, the two avengers trudged up the sharp incline, following an enthusiastic voice saying, "Did you say you have springs in your boots? Show me!"

"Later, Luffy, let's get you to safety first. Don't worry, I can carry you. I've been training a lot this past year. I went to Elbaf, and I worked out with the giants there. I don't look it, but I can lift half a mountain now."

"Wow! No wonder you got taller!" 

"...No, I said that's because of my boots." Though Sanji had the impression that Usopp had been, if not taller, then walking taller this past year. In his own quest for revenge, he'd forgotten how to quail and crouch.

"But you worked out with giants!"

"Um, that doesn't mean-"

Sanji tuned out the schizophrenic conversation that followed so he could concentrate on their surroundings, but the lilt of it, like a childhood lullaby, was with him during the climb up to the outer ramparts of hills and mountains around Rock Haunt. 

Usopp had carefully scouted the area out previously, and directed them to a mule-path reserved for provisions. Since it wasn't large enough for an invading army, there were only a few guards there, and they were easily disposed of. The small party was near the top of the mountain pass, almost home free, and Sanji was slowly starting to believe this was really happening and not some crazy dream. Though he could feel the scuff of his shoes on the rocky path, he could have sworn he was floating a couple of inches above it. Luffy, they'd found Luffy...Sanji remained vigilant, but spared himself a glance at Luffy and Usopp up ahead, negotiating a steep section of road. Just to be sure. Yep, still there. Oh, the looks on the faces of their friends when-

A hand closed over Sanji's wrist, making him glance back.

"Sanji."

"Yeah?"

"We got him back." Zoro's smile was real for the first time in longer than Sanji wanted to remember right now. 

Sanji knew he was grinning in an uncool and utterly goofy way himself, and didn't give a damn. "Hell yeah, we sure did."

"I hope you-..."

"Hm?"

Zoro was looking at him funny - not in a 'I'm looking for a fight, moron' kind of funny, but almost as if he saw something that made him oddly proud. "No. I _know_ you'll find the All Blue, you stubborn bastard. Feed Luffy fish until he explodes, okay?"

"Sure-" waitaminute-

And then with his free fist, the son of a bitch backhanded Sanji into oblivion.


	7. Oblation

"Sanji? Sanji! You awake?"

"Unf'rt'nately, yeah," Sanji managed, after two unsuccessful tries to get his jaw to move the way he wanted it to. "Why'sit s' dark 'n here..."

"You've got your eyes closed."

"Oh..." Sanji hauled at his eyelids, which felt as heavy as mainsails. Usopp was talking way too loudly, each word a throb in Sanji's skull.

"Thank god you're awake! We have to go, Sanji, there's some really scary stuff going on over there, and I can't carry both you and Luffy. I-"

"Fucking son of a bitch sucker-punched me," Sanji said, speaking softly for the sole purpose of sparing the red pulsating thing in his right temple. 

"Um, yes, I was carrying Luffy and when I turned around, Zoro was carrying you. He said this was a safe spot to stay in while we waited for you to wake up and then he left, but I don't think it's safe, that mountain over there just fell down."

Sanji rubbed the sore spot. Bastard. Absolute fucking bastard. Not only had the treacherous ape slugged him, he'd scrambled Sanji's brains in the process, because he could have sworn Usopp just said that a mountain had fallen down.

They were in the guard outposts at the top of the pass, a small, craggy little den without many luxuries where Masu sent any soldier who goofed up. It was empty. Presumably the half dozen men who should be here had made a run for it. Sanji was sprawled on the dirty flagstone floor, and only now realizing how very uncomfortable that was. He sat up, swaying. Usopp was hovering in a way that made Sanji want to kick him, while Luffy was sitting on the doorstep with his back to Sanji, rubber arms wrapped around his knees, staring out into the fading afternoon light. There seemed to be a thunderstorm grumbling in the background, but that might have been the blood swishing through the bump on Sanji's head.

...No, it wasn't that. There really was a lot of noise coming from outside. Rumbles, sharp cracking reports, low grinding grumbles...it sounded like mountains grating on each other's nerves. 

Luffy was staring with rapt attention the way they'd come, back towards the castle. As Sanji crawled forward to join him, he saw Rock Haunt framed by the cliffs on either side of the path downwards. A turret toppled with awesome slowness, breaking halfway down and disappearing behind the outer walls before Sanji could formulate a question.

"...Is it an earthquake?" He could feel vibrations through the rock, trembling beneath his palms. Luffy continued to watch. In the distance a large section of the outer wall fell over, cleanly scythed by some unimaginable force. Stones the size of men flew like chaff. Beyond the wall, a small hill bearing advanced fortifications had indeed fallen in. 

"We need to go over there," Luffy announced, eyes still fixed on the scene. "Can you walk, Sanji? We didn't want to leave you here."

"What...?" Sanji's mouth felt as dry as a sun-bleached skull, his eyes riveted on sight. 

"It's Zoro," Luffy said simply.

"That son of a bitch." Sanji's statement held no particular emphasis. The pieces had fallen all too neatly into place. 

"What do you mean, it's Zoro?" Usopp stared fearfully at the castle. Nothing was falling over any more, but there were strange sounds in the wind, like metal biting into rock, or air getting ripped apart. "I don't get it, who is he fighting?"

"Mihawk. The price. Fucking son of a bitch. He never told me."

Sanji staggered to his feet next to Luffy who was still watching the scene with big, wide eyes and a strangely absorbed expression, as if he could see what was happening. But his captain glanced up when Sanji touched his shoulder.

"We have to go, Sanji. We need to see this."

Sanji grunted and helped Luffy up. 

_Son of a bitch. Could have told me._

The words were angry sparks fusing through the back of Sanji's mind as he helped Luffy down the steep part of the pass. Usopp followed, vainly pleading caution. 

_We were going to go back. We're bringing Luffy back against all hope, we never even thought of having hope, and the shitty baits-for-brains goes and gets himself killed._

The narrow road pitched down at a sharp angle. It was- it _had_ been the fastest way _out_ of Rock Haunt, but now, because of a seaweed-headed moron, it was the fastest way back in. God damnit, they were in the middle of an escape attempt!

_I need help here, I have to take care of Luffy and Usopp, I could have used a hand, but noooo, gotta finish his duel._

As they reached the floor of the basin holding the castle, silence abruptly fell, almost painful to ears that had gotten use to sounds that could have been borrowed from the end of the world. Sanji hoisted Luffy further up his shoulder and started to run.

_Sucker-punched me. What was that about? I wouldn't have stopped you, you bastard. I know what this means to you, I wouldn't have stopped you from fighting, I'd have stood by and let you do the honorable, boneheaded thing-_

So Sanji believed, until he rounded Rock Haunt's smashed outer wall, approached the drawbridge and saw the figure standing there, framed by the shattered portcullis like the gate to hell. It was Mihawk. 

Sanji dropped what he was carrying and threw himself at the man without hesitation. He'd forgotten his previous thoughts, he'd forgotten where he was, how suicidal this could be, he had just one thing in mind. 

Something caught him by the legs, tripping him, and wrapped around his shoulders as he fought against it. He snarled in rage, but an instinct held him back from fully unleashing his strength.

"Stop it, Sanji!" It was his captain's arms around him. With a slow pull, Luffy hauled himself over by the length of his overstretched arms to where Sanji squirmed in the dirt. "Stop it. Don't fight him."

"He killed Zoro! I'm going to-"

"Don't be stupid." Luffy's hectoring tone got through where words of reason would have failed. "Zoro isn't going to let himself get beaten a second time."

Sanji choked on the bitter dirt, sand in his mouth, grit in his eyes stinging. 

Footsteps crunched through the rubble. A pair of boots took centerfield in Sanji's vision. They were thick with clotted blood. 

Sanji's muscles knotted and tensed. Luffy could barely walk, it would only take a small shrug to get him to lose his hold, and Sanji could be up and kicking fast enough to deal one good damaging head blow to the motherless bastard, and then it'd just be a question of finishing the shitty fucker off-

Something splattered in the dirt near Sanji's face. Then more. Thick fat drops of blood falling every few seconds. Sanji took a deep breath, another. Luffy patted him on the shoulder in an encouraging way, and Sanji finally craned his neck and looked up. He wasn't a bushido-maniac, much less a doctor, but he was pretty sure that with a cut like that running from Mihawk's right arm straight across his chest in a diagonal slash, the man wasn't going to be lifting a sword for quite awhile, or even a butter knife. 

Sanji could have been part of the ground for all the attention Mihawk paid him. Those creepy unblinking eyes were fixed on Luffy. 

"I should have known," Mihawk finally said, voice like the creak of a coffin lid. "Some dreams are too strong to die." 

He glanced back once, then turned and walked away, blood splattering to the ground with every step. Sanji stared straight ahead at nothing. Mihawk's face had had the grey-white pallor of massive blood loss, like a corpse, but he'd looked...calm. As if he'd set something down. 

Luffy was poking him repeatedly in the ribs. "Sanjiiii, get up! Let's go!"

Sanji complied. He shouldered his captain, and glanced around in time to see Usopp arrive and shy away from Mihawk's path. The swordsmaster walked on as if Usopp was part of the scenery. Luffy never looked back, his eyes were fixed on the arch, his face set in an expression of faith, a sentiment Sanji could barely remember. 

Zoro was lying in the center of the courtyard and in a pool of blood. Maybe Sanji had remembered what faith felt like after all, because that brittle thread of hope didn't snap until he got close enough to see that Zoro's chest was indeed still moving.

Sanji walked up and kicked him really hard. Or at least he would have, if he could have found a few inches not covered in blood. He didn't want to get marimo-juice on his shoes. He settled for a really good glare instead.

Zoro's eyes fluttered open, fixed on Sanji and Luffy's faces. "I won." His voice was a hoarse whisper, but the quietly exalted look that went with it was like none Sanji had ever seen.

"'Course you did," said Luffy. 

Sanji dumped his captain on the ground and eyeballed his fallen crewmate for wounds that were bleeding profusely, as opposed to those bleeding mildly. "Could it have been any worse if you'd lost?"

Zoro's eyes closed. "No...I'm okay...just...catching my breath."

That's when Sanji did kick him. Pretty hard at that. 

"Ow! Cut that out!" Zoro snapped, head jerking up and voice back at regular volume. Luffy laughed delightedly.

"Shut up, dipshit! You could have told me what you were doing!" Sanji crouched down and ripped off bits of Zoro's shredded shirt to pad the worst of the holes. There was one gusher near Zoro's hip, but most of the other injuries were manageable. Nothing like the wound Mihawk sported. Damn mouldy-headed bastard _had_ won, at that. 

"...It was the price. I thought I was doing him a dishonour when I accepted his help in exchange for our duel. At the time, I had nothing to give him, I had nothing...But now..." Zoro's eyes went from Luffy's face to Sanji's. "He couldn't have won in a thousand years."

"Ten thousand," Luffy chimed in.

"Usopp?" Sanji looked around for someone who could be counted on for some sense.

"Y-yeah, right here!" Usopp came clattering across the paving and screeched to a wide-eyed halt when he saw Zoro. "Oh no! Is he okay?!"

So much for talking sense. "Does he look okay?"

"I hope I have enough bandages left."

Sanji stared hard at the medical kit open in Usopp's hand. Usopp glanced back guiltily at the ruined frame of the portcullis, then at Sanji. He looked like he expected a kick to the head, but there was a thin veneer of defiance behind the apprehension, something he'd picked up this past year along with a ghost limb. "Yeah, I gave him first aid. Zoro would have wanted me to."

"I'm sure he would." Sanji wasn't even being ironic. His nakama were crazy, every one of them, he'd known that from the start. In final analysis he liked them that way, which made him just as nuts.

While Usopp cleaned up the blood and wished very loudly for Chopper's expertise, Sanji glanced around. The destruction was, to use an appropriate word, apocalyptic. Most of the damage had been dealt to the outer and second wall, but a particularly drastic blow had tossed rocks like stones from a catapult over all the defences, bringing down every roof Sanji could see; servant's quarters, guard dorms, great hall, Stone's residence ...Rock Haunt was no more. Sanji briefly wondered if Stone, Masu and the other bastards had made it out of the wreckage, and decided that one way or another, he really didn't give a damn. He had other concerns.

"You know, as soon as you're not on the cusp of expiring, I'm kicking you again, dumbass."

"What'd I do now?" Zoro grumbled. He was still flat out on his back, 'catching his breath'. 

"You sucker-punched me."

"...Oh yeah..."

"OH YEAH?!" Sanji whirled around, making Usopp jump and fumble his roll of bandages. "Is that all you have to say?! You deck me in the middle of an escape attempt to go play my-bushido-is-bigger-than-yours with a genuine psycho who sails around in a fucking coffin and all you can say is _oh yeah_?! You almost got- Damn it-" Sanji pressed his fingers into his eyes hard enough to see blood-red swirls. He finished in a grumble. "I swear, Zoro, I am really going to kick your ass. You shitty bastard."

Zoro closed his eyes. "Sanji..."

"Yeah, that wasn't fair," Luffy put in. "We missed the fight of the century because you knocked Sanji out and we couldn't carry him." He was sitting right next to Zoro's shoulders, legs and arms crossed in a rubbery knot, a disappointed pout on his face.

"That too," muttered Sanji. Something in the way Zoro had said his name made him feel uncomfortable.

Zoro stared at the sky, and then he looked around and met Sanji's eyes, only Sanji's. "I didn't want you to have to watch."

The copper-scented air tasted like acid in Sanji's mouth. He wanted to believe he'd have respected Zoro's deathwish- that is, dream enough not to interfere, but he'd seen too much, they both had, they'd both been helpless as their nakama had fallen a year before, while they both got off scot-free...Zoro was the only other one of the crew who knew exactly what toll that had taken. A year of revenge, a year of walking the path of the nemesis...

Sanji lit a cigarette with a hand that he would not admit was shaking. "Dammit, you goon, couldn't the two of you have settled this on points with a couple of wooden swords?"

"Couldn't you just set up a two-bit diner and call it the All Blue?"

There wasn't much to answer to that. 

"Usopp? How's he doing?" 

Usopp tightened a bandage with an anxious frown. Luffy had helpfully propped Zoro up to allow the sniper to get wrappings around his torso, and was giving Usopp an extra hand where he lacked one. "If it were anyone else, he'd be dead two times over."

"As long as it's not three times, he's transportable. You carry Luffy, I'll drag the pain in the ass along, and we get out of here before Stone's troops or the Marines off the coast come sniffing around."


	8. Absolution

One of Stone's ships at quay was a sloop that could be handled by a small crew, even a small crew whose only functioning members were a cook, a one-handed sniper and a chopped-up marimo with the sense of direction of a stunned newt. The ship was small enough to be ignored by the incoming Navy fleet; only that crazy Captain Smoker spotted them and chased them part of the way. Though to Sanji's eyes, Smoker's pursuit seemed half-hearted and purely for the form...Sanji decided not to examine their luck in escaping him too closely. He had other fish to fry anyway. As soon as they reached their first civilized port, he bought two butchered pigs and one cow, and went to work. After ten days of further sailing, Luffy was his old self again. 

Luffy would have charged to Coco Island directly, barging straight through the calm belt on the way if he'd realized it was a shortcut, but his three nakama knew that Stone's fall and news of Luffy's survival would have reached the ears of a lot of enemies by now. The trip back was as circumspect as they could make it which, considering who was involved, was not very. This was made obvious when they pulled into Coco Island harbor to find the villagers waiting for them with 'Welcome Back, Luffy!' flags and balloons. Sanji would have grumbled about discretion and the Marines who might spot this reception, but there were a few too many pretty girls waving at him to really care.

Zoro also looked mollified by the sight of a keg of booze being rolled out of the local tavern. "Let's hope the Marines don't-...ah, they're here." And damn, even that gruff bastard could sound a little touched after all, when he thought the sea wind was covering his words.

The crowds had parted and the only welcoming committee that really mattered walked towards them. _Walked_. Walked!

"San- Sanji! Zoro!" There was rare note of bewildered alarm in Luffy's voice. "Nami's using crutches!"

"Zoro! Nami-san's using crutches!" yelled Sanji, ecstatic tone the diametrical opposite of Luffy's. 

"Let go, you daft cook."

Sanji realized that, in his delirious joy, he'd grabbed the nearest nakama - that idiot Zoro, unfortunately - and was hugging him like crazy. How insane was that, when he could be hugging Nami? Unfortunately, Luffy got in first. Sanji found himself gripping Zoro's shoulder again as he watched the pair, and Zoro didn't complain. Last time they'd seen their navigator over ten months ago, she'd still been too sick to use even a wheelchair, and Chopper had never given them hope she'd progress beyond that.

"You idiot," Nami sniffled, and then stuffed the straw hat on Luffy's head and wiped her nose on her wrist. Nojiko was standing on her left, grinning at her sister, holding her arm and one of the crutches to give Nami a free hand.

"I'll be damned," Zoro finally said, glancing down at a small form that had hopped over to give them a kneecap-height squeeze of delight. "So what do you do for an encore, doctor? Raise the dead?"

"No, you three did that," Chopper said, wide eyes still glued on Luffy. The starry look flickered as Nami winced in Luffy's enthusiastic hug, though the doctor did not intervene. 

"You doin' okay, fuzzbutt?" Zoro asked, studying their doctor with his no-nonsense expression. 

Chopper seemed to consider the question, as if he'd never even wondered himself. Then he smiled. It was an older smile than before, but it was there all the same. "Me? I'm fine."

"You're a worse liar than Usopp."

"Hey!" said Usopp and Chopper in unison.

"But I gotta hand it to you, you did good."

"You assholes, coming back after ten months and saying that - I'm not happy at all!" said Chopper, flapping around like one of the welcome home flags. "Besides, I can't take all the credit. The best medicine in the world showed up two months ago. But she stayed back at Nojiko's place. She said it would be safer if she wasn't seen."

Sanji took two seconds to figure out how medicine could be referred to as 'she' and then he was sprinting towards the house near the tangerine grove at the top of the hill. 

"Robin-chan! You're back!"

She was sitting at the table near the stove with a mug of coffee and a smile, as if she'd never left them. Her hair was shorter and cut differently, and her face looked more worn than before, but she was as beautiful as ever and Sanji immediately fell in love all over again.

"Huh, so you're back." Zoro was acting all casual next to Sanji's twirling and swaying (though he must have run just as fast to get here at the same time). "Does this mean you found the poneglyphs?"

Robin smiled that enigmatic smile of hers and shook her head. "No. I remembered something more important which I needed to find again first. I'm sorry," she added, the smile replaced with a clear-eyed look Sanji had only ever seen after Enies Lobby. "Even under those circumstances, I shouldn't have left last year."

"No, you shouldn't have," said Zoro, because he had the heart of a shark with indigestion, the bastard. Sanji wasn't going to let anything finally get between himself and the hug he owed Robin for more than a year-

A loud _boiiiing_ , a delighted shout, and Sanji found himself jostled forward at near-terminal velocity and wound up hugging the stove. It was like old times again.

 

There was quite the shindig going on outside. Since Arlong's defeat, Coco Village never needed much of an excuse to throw a party. But the Straw Hats didn't attend. They spent the whole night at Nojiko's house, drinking, eating, talking, catching up. And eating, and eating, and eating, Luffy proving by demonstration that there was no human limit to the quantity of beef, ham and duck à l'orange he could put away. It was morning, and even Zoro had moved on from booze to hot, strong coffee, when Luffy finally sat back with a sigh, patted the barrel that was his stomach and looked around brightly. Chopper and Usopp were sleeping in a small snoring pile on the rug. Nojiko, Nami and Robin had curled up on the couch, quietly talking Girl Stuff; even Sanji knew better than to interfere with that. Luffy's eyes rested on each in turn as if making sure they were still there, then he grinned at Zoro and Sanji. He didn't say anything, but when he hopped off his stool and walked towards the door, both his shipmates followed him.

"Ahhhh! What a nice day!" Luffy could do an impressive stretch, arms flung out to about six feet.

"Sure is," Sanji murmured, reaching for his cigarettes with the smoker's unformulated but firm conviction that fresh air might do him harm.

"So, how's our ship? You said it was here, right? Are we ready to set sail?"

Sanji and Zoro exchanged looks. "I guess. Set sail to where?"

That obviously silly question earned Sanji a rowdy laugh. "Where do you think?! We're going to Water 7 of course! We have to pick up Franky!" 

"...Because you want to thank him for the ship he built us?" Zoro didn't sound too hopeful that this tidy, sane course of action was the one that his captain was contemplating. Sanji could also feel what was coming, it was as big and bright and bouncy as the sun bursting over the ocean-locked horizon.

"Yeah, that, and he's gonna join us. We need a shipwright in the New World. I hear it's rough going over there."

"But...Luffy..."

"I hope Coby waited for me. We said we were going to meet there. And boy! I bet there's some real tough guys to fight before we reach the One Piece!"

"The One Piece," Zoro said flatly.

"Yeah! It's still out there! And it's waiting for us."

Sanji sucked his cigarette butt, tasting the foul wash of nicotine. The One Piece was still out there, sure, so was the All Blue, and tough challengers and Poneglyphs and world maps and- But from the pinched look on her face last night, their navigator would never be able to hobble more than ten minutes at a stretch, their sniper had only one arm, their cook - well, their cook was going to have one hell of a hard time letting any of his nakama out of his sight ever again, which would seriously hamper their fighting effectiveness, and the first mate was probably in much the same predicament. Even Chopper and Robin hadn't escaped unscathed, each in their own way. The fact of the matter was...

The fact of the matter was, if any of that had ever mattered, they'd have never made it this far or joined Luffy in the first place.

A heavy hand thumped Sanji on the shoulder. "Come on, cook. Help me get the ship ready."

Sanji sighed theatrically, hands stuffed in his pockets. "Sure, let's go spit in Davy's eye," he said, a pirate's unrepentant prayer as they turned towards the harbor.


End file.
